Face in the News: Countdown to the election with top political analysts

As the race for the White House comes to an end, top political analysts joined the show on Sunday with the latest on the battleground states and an in-depth look at the numbers needed to win the election.

"You can argue that the President looked commanding and like a leader when he came up to New Jersey," Peggy Noonan of The Wall Street Journal said. "The fact is the storm took the subject matter of Mitt Romney's closing statement, the end of his campaign, his big argument, sort of snuffed that out a little bit for a few days. Inevitably as we all talked about the storm, we weren't talking about the economy."

Conservative columnist Rich Lowry agreed that Hurricane Sandy impacted the campaign conversation. "It interrupted Romney's argument, it forced the President for a couple of days to act and look presidential, which I think suits him much better than being out there making jokes about Big Bird and Romnesia," Lowry said.

Political analyst David Gergen said that Obama got a positive "hurricane bump" along with a "pretty good week," noting endorsements from Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Colin Powell as well as the recently released October jobs report.
So, is the election too close to call? Gergen said not only is it too close, but "impossible to call."

"If you look at the polls from afar, clearly the President has the advantage," Gergen said. "But the other thing is, if you go on the ground, I was in Ohio this week and you hear a different story than what you hear in the polls. You hear a lot of enthusiasm on the part of Republicans. They think they can take this...you can't look at this at 40,000 feet only."

On the other hand, Democratic consultant Dee Dee Myers believes President Obama holds an Ohio edge. "I think it's trending very slightly towards President Obama," Myers said. "He's holding steady in the swing states, particularly Ohio. He continues to over perform in Ohio and nothing has been able to shake voters off of him."

Stu Rothenberg of The Rothenberg Report said that in regards to the popular vote "anybody would be crazy to confidently predict how that's going to go," but he believes that President Obama is more likely to get to the necessary 270 electoral votes to win.

"It's not impossible for Gov. Romney, but all the pieces have to fit together for him; there are a number of must-win states. And so it's just more difficult," Rothenberg said.

In regards to the battleground states, Larry Sabato of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics said that Virginia, Colorado, and New Hampshire are "total toss-ups" but that President Obama has an edge in Ohio.

CBS News Political Director Anthony Salvanto agreed that the battleground states are close to call. "Certainly Virginia is neck-and-neck, that's a toss-up. I think Colorado is razor-close, I think Wisconsin is really close as well," Salvanto said. "And you know we talk a lot about Ohio and it's obviously critical, but let's not forget that somebody's got to take at least two or three, three I think, of those, to get over the top."

At the end of the day, "all of this comes down to turnout" said Salvanto.